🚀 go-pugleaf

It's certainly impossible to dispute that shared transportation on a
limited number of routes appears cheaper than individual transport on a
wider number of routes, but can be misleading to make that comparison.
First, it's very difficult to assign costs given the difficulty of
determining the cost vs. utility of the various public goods involved
(roads, pollution, etc.) It's easy, though, to look at actual individual
behavior to see how people act in evaluating the relative utility and
cost of the different systems.
 
In public transportation systems the bulk of the cost is born equally
by everyone regardless of its utility to them. I don't think you can
find a public transportation system anywhere in the world that covers
its operation costs from revenues, let alone its capitalization, thus
operating revenues and capital costs must be recovered via general revenues.
This is a strong argument that people would not actually pay the real costs
of public transit if they were assigned to the end users only.
 
But people are willing to pay a larger fraction of the cost of individual
transport, above and beyond capital and operational costs. The pay tax on
the vehicle, license fees, government mandated insurance and so forth.
Whether auto owners actually cover the costs of public roads is debateable,
but the most common form of public transport uses the same roads.
 
That leaves the costs of pollution. This is typically taxed in most states,
too, in the form of air-quality testing and mandated controls.
 
I don't know if it's possible to assign the actual costs of public versus
private transportation in a way that all will agree, but I think a very good
case can be made for the argument that in the case of private transportation
there is more perceived utility and more willingness to assume direct costs.